Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Rams Challenge (other than being in the NFL’s toughest division)


Apparently the Rams are offering $100,000 to the person who perfectly picks their upcoming schedule. One glaring difference between this contest and the billion dollar bracket challenge is that I suppose we’re supposed to take it on faith that the Rams aren’t going to look at all of the submissions and then just pick a schedule that doesn’t match up with any of them. No mention of a suitcase locked away at the HQ of Price-Waterhouse-Coopers is what I’m saying.

That said, this article over at Slate says it’s practically impossible to do. Therefore, I submitted a guess.

Even though past performance is not an indicator of future success (as they say when buying stocks), I looked at schedules past. I noticed that, since 2002 (the year the Super Bowl Championship Seattle Seahawks joined the NFC West), the Rams have had five week-9 bye weeks, followed by three week-5 bye weeks. Last year the bye week was during week 11, so I went with week 9 again. I also noticed that they’ve played Philly week one, twice, and tend to play a fellow NFC West opponent week 4, as well as typically end the season against a divisional rival. Considering the Super Bowl Championship Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco feud, I figured the Rams would be playing Arizona. I also made sure not to have more than two away or two home games in a row.

And my biggest guess of all? Taking a chance that the Rams will play the Super Bowl Championship Seattle Seahawks on Monday night again in week 8. Probably should have made that a Sunday night game, now that I think of it. Oh well.